Fleshgod Apocalypse - Veleno

I have been spending quite a bit of time listening to this most recent offering from the famous Fleshgod Apocalypse and enjoying the Italians’ continued display of their knack unabashed orchestrally epic death metal that they introduced on King, but a lot of these recent listens are due to that I’ve also been struggling with what to say about it.
Fleshgod Apocalypse had made the justifiable impact on symphonic techdeath in their first three albums to justify the extravagant indulgence in the dropping of any and all restrictions of the symphonic side of their sound that characterized their 2016 album, King, which paid off nicely for them. As brazen and unhindered of a move as it was for Fleshgod Apocalypse, the band’s gratuitous symphonic glory on their fourth album made sense in the context of their discography, and their fifth album here, Veleno, is very much a continuation (or a sequel or second helping) of the ridiculously epic orchestral bombast of King, and for better or for worse, there really isn’t much change at all that’s occurred between the two albums. And I think that is the biggest issue I have been having with getting my thoughts out on this album.
Aside from it being more of the same cinematically overblown (in a good way) and well-handled death metal that the band employed on their previous full-length, there really isn’t all that much to say about Veleno. And that’s the problem, because there is too much going in to this project for it to be something with so little to say about it.
Again, I do like it, and I am happy that Fleshgod Apocalypse have taken it upon themselves to go all in on this hyper-neoclassical sound and give it some life (as there’s definitely a lot of boring-ass neoclassical metal out there), but despite the few high points of the particularly infectious synchrony between the death metal instrumentation and orchestral instrumentation of “Worship and Forget” and “Absinthe”, and the low-register grooves and glorious conclusiveness of “Embrace the Oblivion”, the album runs more monotonously than an album of its type should. The band simply never take their foot off the gas, and while that approach certainly proves once again to make for a wonderfully flamboyant and consistently explosive experience, its suppression of dynamic ultimately does come back to haunt it.
The song “The Day We’ll Be Gone” is the only real break from the norm on the album, providing a few minutes’ break from the death metal chaos through operatic balladry, and it’s a decent display of more restrained building from the band, but this attention to dynamic detail needed to be applied to the preceding tracks as well.
Veleno, again, is a fun, high-octane death metal experience with no shame about its indulgence in and talent with the implementation of the most boisterous and dramatic symphonic elements it can find. It’s just tinged with the slight disappointment that the band went for such a homogeneous sound with such a huge sonic arsenal at their dispense that could have made it a more exciting and well-rounded experience.
Narrow tower/10

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